My Bro gave me an old 10gal tank

What do I need to do to make a sump(?) I ran to my brothers house yesterday. He gave me an old 10gal tank. It has a crack and I'll need to replace the one side of the glass. I think I can handle that(?), any tips would be great. Then after I fix that what do I need to make a refugium? HELP!!

Oh yeah...is a sump and a refugium the same thing?

 

I would think that it would be cheaper to buy a new 10 gallon tank than to replace the cracked glass.

Most sumps and refugiums are separate from each other. Here's a few pics of ours.

 

Is your tank drilled? If not, you will need an external overflow box to get water to yor sump. As for the sump, you will need to get some pieces of glass to use as baffles to separate your sump into separate compartments. You can either get the glass baffles cut or buy the glass and tools to cut them yourself. You will also need to use silicone to hold the baffles in place. I use GE Silicone 1 and it works great.
A sump is a place for equipment (heaters, skimmers, pumps, etc.) and can also house your refugium or you can do a separate refugium along with your sump. A sump also gives you extra water volume and helps to remove clutter from your tank. A refugium usually contains live sand, live rock, macro algae (chaeto, calupera, etc.) and some critters (snails, crabs, etc.).

Here is a link to an article about Refugiums

Good luck!

 

be a lot cheaper and easier to buy another 10g like she said... You can pick them up for like $10 at wally world.

 

I did not know that, thanks! Would a 10gal be plenty for my 55gal?

 

I think the 10 gallon would be better as a refugium and maybe a 20 long for a sump but I'll let people who know more about this stuff chime in

 

You really aren't going to be able to use the 10gallon tank for a sump/refugium combination! With the equipment that you will want to place in the sump, a 10gallon tank really isn't going to work either as a in sump skimmer will require most of the 10gallon, just for itself. Then, with the pump for the return and the pump for the skimmer, you aren't going to have enough room. UNLESS you purchase a hang on skimmer, and external pumps.
The other thing about a refugium, is that you don't want a high water flow as it will disturb the aragonite sand bed among other things that will be stirred up and make your water cloudy which will eventually be drawn into the pelagic area of your tank.
Best thing is to go with a bigger tank and if you plan on combining the two(refuge and sump) you will need a baffle system as well to limit water flow and microbubbles) IMO.

 

I think a 10 is to small, maybe go with a 20 long like amcarrig said. And if you want to do a combo sump/fuge then maybe you could do different compartments and tee of the return and add ball valves to the return line to control the flow going into each compartment.

I included a picture of my setup, i have roughly 1200 gph flowing through it.

 

yea for my 55, and what crappyballer did, was to have a 29g. sump, and a 10 g. fuge.

 

I think I'm gonna wait for a little bit b4 I go into more expense(Gotta work a few more jobs). I will refer back to this post though when I do build one! Thanks ya'll for the info!